


Still

by RogueLioness



Series: Tales of the Wolf's Heart [11]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, F/M, Post Trespasser
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-09
Updated: 2020-02-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:27:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22637557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RogueLioness/pseuds/RogueLioness
Summary: Why does she yet love him?
Relationships: Female Lavellan/Solas
Series: Tales of the Wolf's Heart [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/764784
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	Still

“Why do you still love him?”

Cassandra’s voice is like her question, blunt and heavy and direct. Neria looks over her shoulder to find Divine Victoria walking towards her, the pale gold rays of dawn lighting up the symbol on her hat.

It really is such a silly hat. However does Cassandra manage to balance it atop her head?

She waits for the Divine to reach her side. Together, they watch the sunrise, watch the blue-black of the night recede to give way to the lush greens of the landscape. Neria hates Orlais, but she has to admit that they make pretty things.

“He took so much from you,” Cassandra continues in a little over a whisper. There is no one else around them, but they know that it does not mean that they’re alone. “He broke your heart, and then he left you without a word. And then-” Neria’s staring straight ahead of her, but she can feel Cassandra’s gaze drop to where her left arm has been so abruptly cut off. “Yet you believe he is worth loving?”

“I have wondered, about your Andraste,” Neria murmurs, ignoring Cassandra’s furrowed brows. “Just what did she say, what did she do, to catch the eye of your Maker?” She falls into silence again. There are birds close by. Nightingales and robins and larks that sing into the sky. It is a bright sound, a cheerful one, but it makes her heart heavy.

“I wonder how it was for him,” she continues in that murmur. “Waking up to a world so different from all that he’d known. Walking the lands to see his people so changed. Changed in many ways, but still subservient. Still downtrodden. All that he’d fought for…” She looks at Cassandra now - Cassandra her dearest friend, Cassandra who punched trees when she was overcome with allergies, Cassandra who had faithfully protected and defended her all these years. “You think he lied to us all those years - and he did, yes. Omitting the truth is still a lie after all.” Neria closes her eyes, tilts her head back, opens herself up to the warmth of the sun. “But not all of it was a lie.” She can feel tears perched at the edge of her eyes. “Whatever he told me was the truth, even when it pained me to hear it.” She laughs, breaking off into a choked sob. “You look at him and see someone who wants to destroy the world. I see that, too. But I also see what lies beneath - a man so destroyed by his guilt and his shame that he is willing to damn himself to correct it. A man so filled with regret and remorse that he cannot see any other path other than the one before him.”

The tears are falling now, dripping off her chin. Neria feels them fall onto the back of her hands. Her fingers hurt from gripping the balustrade so tightly, but it’s all that’s keeping her together right now. “There are many reasons why I love him, and many reasons why I shouldn’t.” She looks at Cassandra again, her gaze fierce. “But only one reason that matters the most. I love him because he trusts me to find a way to stop him. To _save_ him. And I _will_.”

She looks back out into the world again. It might be broken, but it is still beautiful. Much like _him_.

“I will.”

**Author's Note:**

> I've been wondering to myself just why I love Solas so damn much and I still haven't figured it out. But here's an attempt?


End file.
